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Weapons
This is a brief guide to weapon-types to help figure them out. Their are four main types, and each race has a preference for a particular type, but this does not limit you to using certain weapons on certain ships. Ships also have drones to consider, and I will touch on these as well. Also, you can only mount so many weapons on a ship, I'll go into this in more detail in the second section. Generally, the bigger the weapon, the more damage and range, but the slower the tracking speed. So, big guns shoot harder and farther, but can't aim as quickly at close range threats. First, a brief overview of the damage system. There are four damage types: Electromagnetic, Thermal, Kinetic, and Explosive. EM does the most damage to shields, Explosive does the most damage to armor. Thermal does moderate damage to both, but more against shields. Kinetic is the same, but does more damage to armor. A simpler way of putting all that is this crudely assembled 'diagram.' More Armor Damage More Shield Damage -Explosive- -Kinetic- -Thermal- -Electromagnetic- Now, for an overview of the weapon types. Remember that every turret does two or more kinds of damage, while missiles only do one kind of damage, all depending on what ammo you use. Laser Turrets These energy based weapons do EM and Thermal damage. If you didn't totally understand my explanation, and who could blame you :P, these weapons are great for cutting through shields, and not as good at penetrating armor. They do not use ammunition, and instead rely on the ship's capacitor more heavily than other weapon types, which means that you can't run out of ammo, but your capacitor can be heavily drained if you don't monitor your ship carefully. Even though they have no ammo, they can be fitted with 'focusing crystals,' which you'll find under the ammunition tab in the market menu. Installing a focusing crystal modifies the beam of the laser; all this means is that it modifies damage type and amount, and weapon range. The weapon retains its damage multiplier and firing rate. So, if a turret has a 3x multiplier and fires every 5 seconds, whatever damage type the focusing crystal uses will be multiplied by 3, and it will still fire every five seconds. There is often a trade off with crystals, so a very powerful damage crystal might have very low range. One advantage to using crystals is that you can swap them in the middle of a fight, just like ammunition, and it takes less time for a crystal to be ready to fire than a new ammo type. Hybrid Turrets My first question regarding these was, 'hybrid of what?' In sci-fi terms, these turrets use charged energy and physical ammunition combined. In game terms, they're good all-round turrets. They generally have good range and firing rate, and medium capacitor drain and damage. Hybrid turrets can only do thermal and kinetic damage. This means that most hybrid ammo is good for any situation, but not specialized overmuch for penetrating armor or shields. Obviously, if you want to penetrate shields, try to get ammo with more thermal than kinetic damage, and more kinetic for punching through armor. Hybrid turrets use ammunition, which works the same as a focusing crystal, except that it is finite. Ammunition selection is merciful in that you need only choose the ammo type and turret size for the ammo; each turret, regardless of size, can load any kind of ammunition so long as it is the same size of the turret (large, medium, small). Each ammunition type has its own statistics, so one may do more damage, another may do a certain damage type, another has long range, etc. They usually have the same trade-offs as a focusing crystal, but ammunition takes longer to load and reload. You can always switch out the ammo for another type in your cargo bay. Projectile Turrets These turrets require no high-tech mumbo-jumbo to explain, they are simply shell or bullet projecting weapons. Projectiles do not use complicated operations to charge the ammunition in the way a hybrid does, so they use the least amount of capacitor energy of the turret types. There are many kinds of projectile turrets. Some, like gatling guns, have a high rate of fire and low individual shot damage and range. Others, like the massive artillery turrets, have a very low rate of fire but massive damage and range. Projectile ammunition always does some amount of kinetic damage, as well as one or more other types depending on the ammo. Projectile ammunition can cover a wide range of damage types and uses, so you can select something to use for general situations, or you can tailor your choice to certain damage types. You can always switch ammo types if you need to, but this takes more time than swapping frequency crystals. Missile Launchers There are several launcher types, and some can fire multiple classes of missiles. In all cases, if a launcher can fire a missile class (light for instance) it can also fire its FoF equivalent. Here's a brief overview of launcher types and the missiles they use. Rocket Launcher These only fire rockets. They have a fast rate of fire and low system requirements. They can use Defender missiles, and there is no FoF Rocket at the time of this writing. Standard Launcher and Assault Launcher These fire Light missiles, as well as Defenders. They have a decent rate of fire and average system requirements. The difference between Standard and Assault launchers is that Assault Launchers have a much faster rate of fire, but much higher system requirements. Standard Launchers are suited for frigates, but Assault launchers have system requirements which usually limit their use to larger vessels. Heavy Launchers Heavy Launchers fire heavy missiles. Their rate of fire is slower than Standard or Assault launchers because of their larger payload. They can also fire Defenders. Heavy Launchers have high system requirements, so you probably won't use them on frigates. Cruise Launchers Cruise Launchers fire cruise missiles and Defenders. They are slower than Heavy Launchers due to their ammo, and also have big system requirements, so don't expect to mount one on a frigate. Siege Launchers Bigger and slower than even Cruise Launchers. Siege Launchers can fire Cruise and Defender missiles. Their main design is to fire torpedos, and they are the only launcher that can do so. Their system requirements are so large that you won't need to worry about them for a long time. Missiles Missiles are quite different from the turret weapons. When launched, a missile tracks its target and maneuvers to hit it. Every missile has a Velocity, Flight Time, and Agility rating. Velocity is how fast it moves, flight time is how long it can fly, and agility is how well it can adjust its heading to follow a target. Velocity multiplied flight time together make the effective range of the missile. If a missile flies at 1000 meters per second, and has a maximum flight time of 25 seconds, then its maximum range is 25,000 meters (25km). Agility is simply how well it stays on target. If a person can maneuver around the missile for long enough, it runs out of fuel and does nothing to them, so agility helps with faster targets. Pilots can also warp out of the area before a missile reaches them, but there are ways around this as well (see Medium Power Slots below). All missiles do a single damage type, but usually do a whole lot of it. So, you might have a missile that does huge thermal damage, but it only does thermal damage. You can also swap missiles in a launcher in the same way as swapping ammunition in a turret. There are many types of missile types, and I'll briefly explain each. Not all missiles are for doing damage, either. Some have special purposes, so let's look at them in more detail: Rockets Rockets are like the submachine gun of the missile world. They are short ranged, and the better rockets have a very fast flight speed. They don't do as much damage per rocket, but the launchers are all fast firing (rockets have their own launcher type). Light Missiles Light missiles pack less of a punch and have less range, but have faster launchers. Heavy Missiles Heavy missiles are faster and have longer flight times, and also do more damage in a single missile, but their launchers are slower. Both use the same skill to operate. Heavy missile launchers usually take more advanced systems to operate, so you'll be using light most of the time to begin with. Cruise Missiles Cruise Missiles are a step up from heavy missiles. They have a longer range and fly faster, and do more damage than Heavy missiles, but their launchers are slower. They use their own skill, and are even more advanced than heavy missiles, so don't expect to mount these on a small ship. Torpedos Torpedos aren't like other missiles. They do huge damage and have long flight times, but also have slower flight speeds. What is different about them is that they have an explosion radius as well, which can hit many targets at once (I think the 'splash damage' was removed from the server --Luance DeAngeluotti 04:39, 27 May 2005 (PDT). These have their own skill to use, and have high system requirements, so you probably won't be using these even on a cruiser. FoF Missiles FoF stands for Friend or Foe. These missiles come in light, heavy, and cruise varieties, and use the equivalent missile launcher. The difference is that they do not need to be targeted. If a ship damages you, or uses some form of electronic warfare on your ship, then you can launch these and they will automatically attack the culprit. You do not need to target the vessel, but you do need to manually select the fire button to start launching them. FoF missiles have similar attributes to their normal counterparts, aside from their targeting. May 2005: There is a bug that FoF missiles will shoot deadspace objects instead of NPC ships. This can be quite annoying if you are in a mission with many bunkers and walls and your missiles will target them instead of the frigates and cruisers targeting you. Defender Missiles As their name implies, these missiles are not used as a weapon. Instead, you launch these when an enemy missile is homing in on you. There are not many types (only one working model that I know of) but that can change in time. The Defender has fast speed and good range, but slightly lower agility than a normal missile. Not to worry, though, because Defenders have an explosion radius, so they don't actually need to hit the enemy missile directly. You can load these into a normal missile launcher, but not into specialist launchers for rockets, torpedos, and the like. Drones Drones are robotic mini-ships, you can think of them like fighter craft for your big vessel. There are drones that can do all kinds of damage, but each individual drone only does one kind of damage. Some are fast and lightly armored, some are slow and heavily armored. Combat Drones These come as Scout Drones, which are light fighters and Heavy Drones, which are heavy fighters and require alot more skill points to use. Mining Drones There are also mining drones. A wide array of these are about to be released at the time of this writing, and these can help speed up mining. Just remember that a drone has to go to the asteroid, mine its fill, then return to your ship to deposit it, so if a mining laser and a drone have the same rate of mining, the laser will always be slightly ahead since it doesn't waste time bringing things to you. If mining in dangerous areas, you might want to use combat drones to guard your ship while you use turrets for mining lasers. Sources Originally by Restrius